by Nyna Queen
Showing her own goodwill, Alex removed the rope and crouched down opposite the girl, letting her backpack slide off her shoulder. Darken kept standing above them, towering like a silent sentinel, sword still at the ready in his hand. He didn’t seem to trust the peace. Well, of course, he was right not to.
“I have some beef jerky with me,” Alex noted casually. “Want some?”
The girl looked torn for about half a second, then her head bobbed with an almost desperate intensity.
Alex made another mental note to thank Rachel, who’d suggested she better bring some food for when dealing with the wild ones. Same old trick, worked every time.
She fished out one of the bags from her backpack and handed it over. The girl all but ripped it out of her hands, tore the plastic open with her teeth—probably swallowing a mouthful in the process—and stuffed the jerky into her mouth with both hands, wiping grease all over the face.
Sweet Jester, she really was pitiful to look at.
Alex gave her some time and tried not to wrinkle her nose at the disgusting, chomping noises the kid made as she gobbled down the food. The Great Mother have mercy on her, but spending that much time in noble trueborn households was making her oversensitive.
Within seconds the food was gone.
Licking her filthy fingers, the shaper girl held up the empty bag, looking even more desperate and wretched. “More?”
She eyed the backpack hopefully.
Alex shook her head. “Talk first.”
The snake looked disappointed, but sighed and nodded.
Her name, as it turned out, was Ruby, and she was very interested in talking about anything food-related, but not much else.
“You belong to the pack that lives in the mountains here, don’t you, Ruby?” Alex asked.
The girl shrugged.
“Daimon’s pack,” Alex prompted, using the information Rachel had supplied her with.
“Daimon’s dead!” the kid snapped. After a moment she added in a sullen tone: “Miyuke is dominant now.”
And you preferred Daimon? I wonder why that is.
“Look, Ruby, we are here because of Akio and Cedar,” Alex said. “They left a while ago with two others, didn’t they?”
Panic flashed in the kid’s eyes. Interestingly, it wasn’t Alex but Darken she looked at, before wildly shaking her head. “Me knows nuthing.”
The mention of the dead shapers seemed to have hit a nerve.
“We just want to know why they left,” Alex told her carefully, slightly confused by her reaction.
Ruby turned away, staring at the trees and shaking her head.
Alex sighed and rocked back, glancing at Darken. “I don’t think this will lead to anything. We should talk to someone of the pack who has some real authority, like Miyuke.”
Ruby’s head snapped back to her. “No!”
“No?” Alex innocently raised her eyebrows. “Does this mean you do know something?”
Uncertainty flickered over the bony features, but now the girl couldn’t back out unless she wanted to admit that she was just some kid running to the adults. Sometimes it was too easy.
It looked like Ruby had come to the same conclusion because she let out a defeated sigh. Her brow furrowed in concentration.
“Men come.” She held up three fingers. “When moon full. Only want talk to grown-ups.” She pouted. “But Pat and me, we sneak close. We good at masking us scents.”
Yeah well, tell me about it. The kid had nearly managed to pounce on top of her.
“They bring gifts. And meat. Promise more, more.”
“What did they want in return?” Alex asked, leaning forward.
“They say go down hill, kill farm people. Kill, kill. They give map. They say blood, much blood. Nasty, nasty.” She pursed her lips. “Akio like that. Akio say they deserve be kicked their fat asses. Daimon say no. Too dangerous. But other dominant says yes yes yes, year was bad, no food, no prey, bad harvest. Need food. And men say, yes, food. Meat. Will give us more meat.”
The girl paused. Looked up at the sky. Alex followed her gaze to a small bird perched on a branch about ten feet above their heads.
Ruby went completely still, eyes fixed on the bird. Her pupils turned to slits.
Alex’s eyes narrowed. What the—?
Out of nowhere, Ruby rocketed skyward, snatched the bird, and yanked it down. She landed, coiling and thrashing on the ground, in ways that reminded Alex a lot of a snake winding itself around its victim.
The bird screamed helplessly in her grip.
Without hesitation, the girl’s true teeth snapped out and she ripped the head off the bird, gobbling it down whole. Blood spurted out of the small stump.
Jester’s fucking grace!
Ruby spun around to Alex and Darken with a snarl, eyes wild, blood dripping from her elongated fangs, while the dead feathery body weakly twitched in her grip. Finding no challenge for her prize, the kid squatted on her haunches and ripped open the breast, tearing at its flesh.
Alex tried hard not to retch. If that was what being part of a wild pack entailed, she was glad she’d decided against taking that leap.
Finally, Ruby spat a few bones and feathers aside and looked down at her filthy but empty hands, as if wondering where her snack had gone.
Alex cleared her throat. “What happened then?”
The girl glanced up from the mess and frowned, then remembered.
“Adults fight. Daimon dies. Miyuke say go go go. Need the meat. Go.”
“So they left?”
The girl nodded, snapping one of the bones and sucking out the marrow. “Akio goes. And Cedar. Josh ‘n Pyre.”
“What about the men with the proposal?”
Ruby bared her teeth. Blood was still running from the corner of her mouth and Alex had to admit, she looked rather inhumane at this instant, like a vile, demonic creature.
“Bad men,” she snapped. “Liars. Cheats. No more meat comes. Nothing comes. And Akio and others not return.”
Alex felt a heavy sting in her chest. She balanced the girl’s right to know what had happened to her pack members with their own need for information. What would she do, if they told her that they had been arrested and killed?
Stalling, she asked: “Do you remember anything else about those men? What they looked like? Anything at all?”
The girl’s face twisted into an ugly grimace and she pointed a bloody finger at Darken. “They was like him!”
Darken’s head snapped up, eyes flaring blood-red.
“What do you mean ‘like him?’” Alex asked sharply, although she already knew the answer.
Grinning insanely, Ruby raised her hands and wiggled her bony fingers. “They was wearing gloves and hoods, but one takes off and I see paintings on skin. Gold and black. Pretty. Pretty, pretty liars. Eyes like blood and fire. Creeps.” She glared at Darken, full of hatred. “You have a deal, too?”
“No, Ruby,” Alex said softly. “We have no deal. We want to find those men who betrayed your pack. They need to be stopped.”
“Liar!” Ruby screamed. With that, she jumped up and vanished between the trees.
Alex cursed and surged to her feet.
“Ruby?” she called. “Ruby!”
Nothing. Not so much as a vibration troubling their surroundings.
“Damn,” she muttered and turned to Darken with a shake of her head. “She’s gone.”
The sight of him took her by surprise. He stood completely rigid, stiff as a poker. Small, violent ripples ran up and down his body like liquid lightning. His right hand still clutched the sword and his knuckles were showing stark white through his sun-kissed skin. It was surprising that the hilt wasn’t bending under the pressure of his bone-breaking grip. His face was contorted into a sharp, twisted mask and she felt his magic—sweet Jester that magic—hot and hungry and burning just below the surface of his skin, yearning to be released.
Alex swallowed and approached Darken warily, searching his face for any indication
of what he would do if she crossed a certain line—and what that line was.
No fear, sugar. Just don’t show any fear.
She inhaled deeply, keeping her voice soft and calm. “Why would some forfeits hire a bunch of shapers to kill a trueborn family of farmers? What do they gain from it?”
Darken’s murderous gaze found her and for a brief second, naked panic lashed through her. She was swept away by the staggering depth of his burning fury, by the raging inferno that opened below her and reached for her with tendrils of icy heat, ready to devour her whole.
Her instincts screamed at her to run as fast as she could, except, if she did, Alex was sure whatever restraints he still held on his temper would be torn apart. Instinct or no, running was the worst thing she could do right now.
Suppressing a shiver, Alex stood her ground, hardly daring to breathe. Waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting.
After a long moment that seemed like it would never end, a soft shudder ran through Darken’s body and the blood rage receded a smidgen. It wasn’t much, but Alex instinctively knew that he’d stepped away from the killing edge.
Cold relief washed over her, making her knees wobble. Hell, that man could be scary!
When he spoke, his voice still sounded like a deep, ragged growl that was barely human. But, hey, he was speaking to her. Speaking was better than the deadly, rage-filled silence.
“The real question is: Who ordered them to do it?” Darken abruptly sheathed his sword, turned on his heels and headed back the way they had come.
Alex quickly snatched her backpack and hastened to catch up with him.
“Ordered? You think they were ordered to do it?”
Moving seemed to help because when Darken looked up at her, his expression was a little less crazy, though still tense.
“No rogue forfeit would have reason to do this.”
“Rogue?”
Darken hesitated, then sighed. “Sometimes, when a forfeit gets irrevocably out of control or breaks the rules of the Order, they are declared rogue. Outlaws. They are considered fair game and any other forfeit is supposed to kill them on sight. Sometimes there’s even an unofficial bounty on their heads. That’s the way we take care of our own unpleasant problems without the public knowing.” His lips curled in sharp contempt. “Those who become rogue have either gone postal and are too far gone to think reasonably, or they committed some deliberate transgression and therefore try to go into hiding. That being said, I’m not aware of any current rogue order, much less three. And as you said, they would have no good reason to do this for themselves. No, the only reason for such an action would be a direct order.” He closed his eyes. “This is a lot worse than I feared.”
“Why?”
She got it was bad. Murdered people were always bad news. And involved forfeits—that just reeked of trouble. Yet she wasn’t sure she got the depth of his frustration.
Darken slowed his pace a little and held a branch out of the way to let her pass. Right. The trueborn gentleman was back on track.
“You must understand, the Order is a special branch of Arcadia’s military,” he said. “This means that it is directly controlled by the government. Every single forfeit mission must be signed by the requisite provost and countersigned by a member of the High Council, in other words, the prime or one of the governors. And every approved mission—without exception—is documented in the central mission logs, so that our activities on duty can be meticulously monitored and controlled and—should it be necessary—justified before Parliament and the High Court.”
“Wait a minute!” Alex interrupted, not sure she’d heard right. “Are you saying that one of the governors—or the prime himself—ordered the murder of that family?”
“Ordered,” Darken said quietly, “or at the very least, turned a blind eye to it. The signing itself could have been done by an authorized member of the governor’s office. But this much is clear: this order came from the very top. And the fact that it didn’t appear in the logs tells its own tale.”
The meadow stretched out before them, the bloody shadows of the setting sun snaking across the grass. A frown creased Darken’s forehead. “The crime was committed in the South. I’ve met Robert Ferhus, the current governor of the South. He seems a decent man as far as politicians go and I know Stephane has a high opinion of him. He is retiring this year after the election. I find it hard to believe that he has a hand in this but, at this point, we shouldn’t rule anybody out.” He paused. “With the prime and the other governors, Arlington Shinner and Emmeline d’Antoine, I have no personal experience. Even so, the question remains: What would any of them gain from having a trueborn family from the lower social ranks killed?”
“Unless it wasn’t so much about the people killed as it was about the killers,” Alex whispered.
Darken stopped mid-stride. “Shapers,” he said softly.
Alex nodded. “It was this incident that refueled the debate about the shaper regulations. The same debate that dearly cost your brother in the election campaign, while everybody else benefited from it.”
She slowly started walking again, tapping a nail against her chin. “Kill someone unimportant and let it make the rounds.”
“But not too unimportant,” Darken threw in. “Like some halfborns.”
“Exactly,” Alex agreed. “That wouldn’t cause enough of a stir. But you want a stir to get all that media attention.” She grimaced. “Then blame your target and reap the righteous anger. Or even better, let the targets do the dirty work themselves, then catch them and act the part of the hero.” She frowned. “How were they caught again?”
“Anonymous tip to the guardaí department in Rhelrya,” Darken said. “According to Belaris’ source, they were said to have been bragging about the murders in public. The guardaí sent a squad and … well, you know what happened.”
Alex wrinkled her nose. “Shashlik.”
Darken inclined his head. “Kill your only witnesses and everybody is happy.”
“Yep, everybody is happy.”
They looked at each other.
“It would seem someone from the High Council is supporting one of the other candidates,” Alex drawled. “Or they really just don’t want your brother to become governor.”
Darken’s expression turned grim. “If that’s true—” His eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong?”
Alex had frozen, with a knife in her hand.
Darken leaned forward, changing back into predator mode in five seconds flat. “Do you hear something?”
“No,” Alex whispered. “Nothing.”
And that was exactly what was wrong
Everything had gone silent: the chirping birds, the scurrying critters in the undergrowth, even the humming bees—all quiet. As if the world was holding its breath.
Alex’s sensory threads snapped free, probing the area around them, and a shiver ran down her spine. She gripped her knife tighter.
“We are surrounded.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“HOW many?” Darken asked quietly.
“At least ten,” Alex breathed. “Maybe more.”
And quite close, too. How had they snuck up on them so quietly?
If you had been expecting Darken to panic, you would’ve been sorely disappointed. He moved calmly, shifting closer to her and reaching into his jacket again. Ready to protect her, huh?
A red glow rolled over his irises. Alex felt the magic reawakening inside him, could almost see it steaming in the air around him, a hot, deadly cloak that could snuff out lives in the blink of an eye.
Mother’s mercy and Jester’s grace! If he lost it, this would end in a massacre.
There was only one way to resolve this without bloodshed. Alex raised her voice, “We know you’re here.”
As if responding to an invisible sign, men and women sprouted from the ground around them like deadly flowers, some among the trees behind them, a handful in the meadow in front of them. She counted f
ourteen in total. Fuck!
Among the shapers at the edge of the trees, Alex spotted Ruby, facing them with a malicious grin. Little bitch!
The scrawny kid was flanked by a tall woman clad in ripped black jeans, a leather top, and worn but surprisingly sturdy combat boots. A cougar fur was draped across her shoulders like some weird kind of stole. One side of her head was shaved and thickly scarred, the other was covered in long, tangled black hair. Her slanted eyes incessantly changed from dark brown to solid black and back. Why, hello Miyuke.
Apparently, Ruby didn’t resent the woman as much as she had pretended to. Or, perhaps, Miyuke was able to give her something that trumped her resentment …
Alex raised her hands, showing empty palms. “We mean no harm.”
Miyuke snorted. It was a dry, harsh sound.
“No harm?” Her voice was unexpectedly deep. “We know Pyre, Josh, Akio, and Cedar is dead. We are not dumb, you know. We hear the news. And now you come, bringing more rotten meat into our land.” Her gaze fell on Darken, brimming with disgust.
“I already told Ruby; we are looking for the men who betrayed you,” Alex said loudly, knowing every single one of the shapers could hear her very well.
Miyuke’s eyes turned solid black. “Liar! People not come to us, unless they want something from us. Our land. Our meat. Our blood. But they not pay. They never pay!” She paused for a second. “Pyre was my son and Akio was brother of Ruby.”
The girl beside her let out a soft whimper.
That explained things. They wanted revenge for their losses and she and Darken had come along just at the right moment. Oh no, this wouldn’t end well. Damn it all to the bowels of hell!
Alex forced herself to keep her voice calm. “We got what we wanted. Let us leave in peace and nobody else will get hurt.”
Ruby smirked. “I not think we will getting hurt. We is many and you is only two.”
“Yes, I know,” Alex drawled. “And here we were hoping to give you a sporting chance. But, well, life isn’t always fair.”
The kid frowned, apparently unable to follow. Clearly not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Miyuke raised her hands, looking past Alex and Darken. “Did I not promise you meat? Now we will have meat!”